God's grace always precedes his call

" 'The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything.' His unflinching trust in the love of God morphed into humble confidence that the grace for the next step in the dance of life was already there, given.

Without anxiety, Abba’s children move forward, knowing that the next and the next and the next steps will take care of themselves. Abba’s children don’t worry about tomorrow or even late this afternoon. . .

God’s grace always precedes his call. . . . Living in the wisdom of tenderness is an unending adventure in trust and dependence." - My beloved Brennan Manning in The Wisdom of Tenderness

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I had to go back and find this excerpt tonight as I felt they captured what I just experienced. These words give some explanation for the type of inner stillness that relying on his grace produces. He rescued me yet again today and I found as I stepped into that next moment, the grace was already there, given. The blessedness of being Abba's child, if only we always rested in this humble confidence not that He will provide, but that He has already provided, not that he would take care of it but that he has already taken care of it, oh that we would have the grace to live in the wisdom of tenderness and know our Abba has already given us all we will need, we need not be afraid nor be anxious. How I wish I would have remembered this truth earlier, in the midst of the anxiety, but even then you came through and gave me a capacity to trust you and not know how but knew you would, take care of it. All that is required is our trust. Our hearts completely surrendered and believing you are who you say you are.

God's grace always precedes his call, so we as Abba's children can move forward in joy and freedom and led forth by peace.

father of mine

I have a good Father.
The perfect Father.
One who always comes through for me.
One who can always be trusted and relied upon.
And one who lovingly provides and cares for me.
One who loves me by giving me himself.

Tonight, I find myself blown away by your faithfulness. Blessed by how you take care of me. Continuously, lovingly and tenderly.

You always come through. And you can always be trusted.

One who loves and leads and guides.
One who protects and whose love never fails.
One whose promises are true and whose word I can place my life on.
One who sees and knows and hears me.
One who longs to provide and give me everything I need.

I’m blessed to have such a Father.
Thank you for the mysteries and the depths of your unfailing love and your rich mercies. New every morning.

my peace i give you

You alone keep in perfect peace those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you. :: Isaiah 26:3

These words kept popping in my mind today anytime I realized I was feeling overwhelmed and very anxious.

I felt like I didn’t have enough time in the day. that all week the work had kept piling up and I felt I was barely keeping myself from drowning, only being able to keep up with anything email or facebook that was work/ministry related, I felt this growing anxiety within me all day, as time kept slipping away…

I kept praying for peace. And to experience it. and kept hearing those words above, along with allowing the peace of Christ guard my heart and mind, those words about being anxious about nothing.

Strange that suddenly throughout the day, these burdens were lifted, this anxiety replaced with laughter, the pressures slowly eased by a calming reassurance, the anxiety replaced by a strange peace.

An unshakable grounding and a peace that can only come from him. Proving once again you are my rock and my refuge. A shelter I cannot explain but felt tonight in the depths of my being.

Thank you for keeping me in perfect peace, as all you desired was for me to trust you and you would take care of the rest.

Romanced.

It was one of the first places You romanced my heart.

I feel it every time I drive there. From the minute I park my car, this feeling takes over…

It’s as if something in my soul remembers

this place.

A feeling not even words can give voice to or begin to describe.

Rest.

A feeling and reassurance of rest takes over.
He restores my soul.

It is there You romance my heart.

I feel something pulling me forward
Wooing me

Beckoning me to come closer...

I feel the warmth of your love with each step I take
I feel the reality of your delight
As I enter more deeply into your presence.

I am always in awe at how easy it is to escape out there.

It is there You romance my heart.

Remind me of what is most real and true.
Captivate me by your beauty and the beauty of nature all around me.
Steal my heart again in wonder and awe.

It is there you speak to my heart in ways I cannot hear when surrounded by the noise and the clutter and distractions of this life.

It is there you speak to me and let all my illusions fall to the ground...

So it is just You and I.
It is there where life is most real.

Where my fears, my insecurities, the things rumbling beneath the surface gnawing at my soul are brought into the light.

Where my doubts, my failings, my regrets and longings find a home.

A place where I can acknowledge and come to the end of myself. A place where my brokenness is made most real yet embraced.

Where my limits and humanness bring humility. Yet where Your grace is sufficient…

For me.

Where I am nothing and You are everything.

With growing clarity, a realization takes over that I am nothing and you are everything. That you are the Creator and I am… the created. That I am man and you

alone...

are God.

That you are the only one with the power to save. The only one with the power to heal and restore my soul.

The only one to help me change negative patterns before they become costly
The only one who can wipe away every tear
The only one who sees and knows all
The only one who creates beauty in the midst of brokenness, hope in the midst of despair, wholeness in the midst of utter ruin, freedom in the midst of bondage.

You alone are God.

It is also there that I am reminded of my most coherent sense of self, that my identity comes not from the opinions of others, nor the amount of success or accolades for my performance, or the affirmation or approval

But from who you are and who you say that I am.

I’m reminded my worth comes from him.

That my worth comes from God’s love towards me and this and this alone determines my worth, value and my place in this world.

That I cannot look anywhere but internally for this. For that answer will not be found out there.

But within.
The place where God dwells.

That those secrets and core truths about my identity are never going to be found anywhere else but Him.

That even the life my soul desires cannot be found elsewhere.
Only within.

And that place within is only nourished and fed when I steal away to that place. Or the places where I can hear him speak. Where I can enter into that silence and that stillness and wait on God.

Wait for Him to come and meet me.

To wait.

For the place where he is there waiting for me.
Always.

To come home.

The risk of trusting God

Brennan Manning alludes to this in his prolific work, Ruthless Trust. Arguably one of my favorite books, and clearly my favorite author. I was sorting through several things tonight and realized what I was really fearing was what we call the fear of the unknown. A fear stranger to no one. I found myself coming to the realization that I wish I knew answers to some of my questions or that I needed answers of my questions to rest. But what if some of those answers come or some of those circumstances come to pass, then what. I knew there was more. “If I knew, then that would eliminate the risk of trusting you…” As soon as those words left my hands and found their way into my journal, a sobering reality came over me.

What I really realized was I wanted to eliminate the risk of trusting God. For being in such a state is a vulnerable place and I wanted simply to be done with it. But we are called to trust.

“Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father’s active goodness and unrestricted love.”
- Brennan Manning

That clarity and desiring that clarity was the last thing I was clinging to and the very thing I had to let go of. We are invited to trust. A life of not seeing yet believing is the precious life we are currently being invited into, a journey that invites us deeper into the very heart of God, one that requires total and complete surrender, full and utter abandonment to every last thing we might try to cling to that is not the living God. We are invited to a life that requires total dependence on our Father, as in Him we live and move and find our being. Though we fear it is an uncomfortable place to live, it is a place of inexpressible joy and freedom, of life and peace. For there, in that place of ruthless trust we are surrounded by the richness of His promises and His unfailing love.

waiting at the base of the tree of our own lives.

Entering into the communion your soul seeks

We are always invited to that place.
We feel that tug on our heart. Sometimes it’s so easy to ignore. Other times its pursuit is relentless.

We submit. We know we were drawn there.

We know we are wanted.

“Spiritual leadership emerges from our willingness to stay involved with our own soul—that place where God’s spirit is at work stirring our deepest questions and longings to draw us deeper into relationship with him. Staying involved with our soul is not narcissistic navel gazing; rather, this kind of attentiveness helps us stay on the path of becoming our true self in God—a self that is capable of an ever-deepening yes to God’s call on our life. But right away this presents us with a challenge. For one thing, the soul is a tender thing, and leadership can be very dangerous.

As Parker Palmer says, “The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, we know the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out.”

The settings in which many of us are trying to provide leadership are places where everyone is crashing through the woods together, harried and breathless, staying on the surface of intellect and the ego while all things soulful flee deeper into the woods. … in silence we give up control and allow God to be God in our life rather than being a thought in our head or an illustration in a sermon. In that place of our seeking we listen for the still, small voice of God telling us who we really are and what is real from a spiritual point of view. Then we are not quite so enslaved by the demands and expectations of life in leadership…”

- Ruth Haley Barton

I first read these words a few months ago, yet they also pop into my mind when I know something is out of balance, or that there is so much my soul has yet to say.

It reminds me of my need for solitude and what God does in that place. A place where we must wait for our souls to make an appearance, so He alone can speak and meet us there.

"Someone has said, You’d be surprised at what your soul wants to say to God.” For those of us who are in leadership, it is often hard to find space that is quiet enough and safe enough for the soul to be as honest as it needs to be. We don’t often take the time to sit quietly by the base of the tree of our own lives and wait for the wild animal we seek to put in an appearance. Here is an invitation to sit quietly for a few moments for the sole purpose of allowing your soul to say what it needs to say to God. Don’t try to force anything or work to make something happen. The soul runs from such attempts. Just sit quietly in God’s presence and see what shows itself. This may take time but when your soul has finally said that thing that it has been waiting to say, you will know. If you sit long enough, you might also be surprised at what God wants to say to your soul.”

- Ruth Haley Barton

These words completely transformed what solitude meant for me and utterly my relationship with God and were a blessing to me yet again tonight as I realized my soul had much it has been wanting to say. It just needed space and it just need a safe place.

A place only found in the shadow of the almighty.

- Excerpts in bold from Ruth Haley Barton's, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. A must read for anyone desiring more of God.

The power of rest

I read this tonight during a period of rest and it floored me with how powerful rest is and how it also captured some of the realizations I had from experiencing rest tonight.

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“There is something deeply spiritual about honoring the limitations of our existence as human beings—physical an spiritual creatures in a world of time and space. There is something about establishing rhythms that are gracious and accepting of our human limits that enables us to be gracious and accepting with others. There is an energy that comes from being rested that is different from the energy that comes from being driven. There is a wisdom that comes from silent listening that is different from what comes from talking things to death. There is right action that comes from waiting on God that is utterly different from reactivity. There is a renewed engagement in battle that is different from slogging through life with unremitting and stoic resolve. All of these rhythms create space for God, fostering an ability to bring something truer to the world than all of our doing. All of these rhythms put us in touch with something more real in ourselves and others than what we are able to produce. We touch our very being in God.

Surely that is what the people around us need most.”

:: Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Ruth Haley Barton